A minister, a PR firm, and a scandal that won’t go away. Questions are piling up around Cabinet Office minister Josh Simons, who’s accused of orchestrating an alleged smear campaign that falsely linked journalists to a so-called “pro-Kremlin network.” At the center of this storm lies a bigger issue—can the minister’s own statements about what happened be trusted? But here’s where it gets complicated: the deeper you look, the more inconsistencies emerge.
Josh Simons, who previously led the Labour-affiliated think tank “Labour Together,” first came under the microscope in late 2023. The think tank had failed to declare political donations totaling £730,000—a serious oversight that quickly drew press attention. Trying to find out how that story reached the media, Simons hired a U.S.-based public affairs firm, Apco, supposedly to trace the origins of a Sunday Times investigation. That report had relied on files obtained by freelance journalist Paul Holden, with further articles expected from American journalist Matt Taibbi.
Simons has since admitted that Apco “never fully got to the bottom” of where the information came from. Still, by early 2024, he emailed the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)—a branch of GCHQ—and made a deeply questionable claim: that several journalists were somehow linked to a hack of the Electoral Commission and to Russian propaganda. And this is the part that most people miss—the entire justification for that claim is riddled with contradictions still unexplained.
1. Why did Simons insist Apco was investigating an ‘illegal hack’?
One of Simons’ first public comments after the scandal broke came in a dismissive tweet on 6 February. “A thinktank paid a PR firm to find out if its private [information] was obtained through an illegal hack,” he wrote, jokingly adding, “HOWZATT.” Yet, the contract signed between Labour Together and Apco mentions nothing about cybercrime or hacking. Apco is known for managing reputations, not for conducting forensic cybersecurity inquiries. The £36,000 contract actually tasked Apco with gathering “a body of evidence that could be packaged for media use to create narratives that would proactively undermine any future attacks on Labour Together.”
So what’s going on here? If Labour Together truly thought a hack occurred, why didn’t the contract reflect that? And if it wasn’t about hacking, does Simons’ tweet suggest a deliberate attempt to mislead the public?
2. Why claim the inquiry had ‘nothing to do’ with the Sunday Times?
That same day, Simons tweeted again—this time saying Apco’s probe “had nothing to do with UK journalists at the Sunday Times, Guardian or any other brilliant newspaper.” But the written agreement between Apco and Labour Together explicitly names the Sunday Times. It directed Apco to explore the “sourcing, funding and origins” of a Sunday Times article and upcoming works by Paul Holden and Matt Taibbi, in order to uncover who was “behind the coordinated attacks” on the think tank.
If the firm never identified where the leaks began, why did Simons go on to contact the NCSC and accuse journalists anyway? And if, as he claimed, the matter had “nothing to do” with the Sunday Times, how does he justify naming the paper—and its reporters Gabriel Pogrund and Harry Yorke—in emails to government security officials? The inconsistencies leave many wondering whether this was damage control or deliberate distraction.
3. Did the Apco report really cover only one journalist?
A week later, on 11 February, a government source close to Simons told the Guardian—speaking anonymously but with apparent ministerial approval—that Labour Together only received information about one journalist, Gabriel Pogrund. This statement has since been widely disputed.
Sources familiar with the Apco report say it included information on at least three other individuals: Paul Holden, Matt Taibbi, and Andrew Murray (then a journalist at the Morning Star). That directly contradicts the official account. So does Simons now acknowledge that Apco’s findings mentioned multiple journalists? If he does, why hasn’t he corrected the public record?
4. What exactly was ‘untrue’ about the Guardian’s reporting?
Tensions escalated again on 20 February, when the Guardian published excerpts from Simons’ own emails with the NCSC. These messages showed that Simons and his chief of staff, Ben Szreter, had urged intelligence officials to probe the origins of the Sunday Times story. They even suggested possible ties to Russian disinformation efforts.
After publication, a spokesperson for the minister simply said: “These claims are untrue”—but declined to detail what, specifically, was false. The Guardian has since released the full email exchanges, which appear to back up its reporting. In those emails, Simons and Szreter not only raised suspicions about Paul Holden’s work but also claimed Holden was “living with” Jessica Murray—the daughter of Andrew Murray, whom they alleged MI5 had “suspected of Russian intelligence links.” Murray himself called the allegation “a lie.”
One source close to Simons insists he genuinely feared cyber interference and only contacted the NCSC for national security reasons. They argue any false reporting to intelligence agencies wasn’t intentional, placing the blame instead on Apco’s research. Still, they avoided addressing another key question: if the NCSC declined to open an investigation, why did Labour Together’s legal team later tell another newspaper it couldn’t comment on the matter because of “ongoing investigations by the UK intelligence services”? That statement, made in early 2023, now appears misleading at best.
And here’s where the story becomes even more contentious—was this an innocent misunderstanding, or an attempt to manipulate public perception and discredit critics? Each new revelation raises more doubts than it resolves.
So, what do you think? Should ministers be held personally responsible when private PR campaigns cross ethical lines? Or is it acceptable for political figures to rely on professional firms to “shape narratives” in their favor? Share your thoughts—this debate isn’t over yet.
